For Want of a Nail
by FrauThenardier
Summary: AU-ish speculation. What if there had been another Tuck child... one who didn't drink the water? What if the Man in the Yellow Suit had a deeper reason to seek out immortality than financial gain? As Una Tuck grew to womanhood, it became clearer and clearer to her that there was something wrong with her family, and she began to fear the worst...
1. The Tucks in Mourning

Disclaimer: I don't own Tuck Everlasting. If I did, the concept of a Tuck Girl would be canon. I only own the extended Tuck family in this story (see below for family tree) including Una Annabel "Belle" Tuck Jeffers; as well as her husband, his family, all of their children but one, and a few other OCs who play a role in her life.

This fic is dedicated to my favorite tumblr blogger: mostbeautifulday. She is one of the greatest blurb writers it has ever been my good fortune to read. I really hope you enjoy this. Also- keep your eyes peeled for my upcoming oneshot about Mae in the musical Blood Brothers (if I ever get to it. I have the WORST track record)!

 _Author's note: This fanfic has technically been in the works since I first read this book as a kid, although it bears little to no resemblance, by now, to its first incarnation. There have been a lot of rewrites and edits since back in the day, but one thing that has never changed is my love for the idea of a Tuck Girl. In the modified words of TrudiRose, my role model in all things fanfic- also my fabulous Beta Reader for The Inventor's Daughter- can I write an AU in which the Tucks had more kids than just Jesse and Miles and that gives more insight into the Man in the Yellow Suit's past that is believable, or have I lost my mind?_

 _Well, no turning back now, guys. Let's find out._

 _This fanfic takes place in what I like to call a "Comboverse." Meaning, this 'verse has elements of both the musical and the 2002 movie. As in the musical, Winnie, once she appears in 1893, will be an eleven-year-old kid, the cat drank the water instead of the horse, and the Tucks look and talk basically like they did in the play (in the play, I noticed they pretty much talked like modern people, or at least used expressions I don't think that, historically, they'd have used. Examples: "Where are my pants?"- Angus Tuck. "Pants" was considered bad language in the 1800s. Also something along the lines of "You better go before You-Know-Who finds out and I get in trouble."- Angus Tuck. Also "Well, technically, Honey…" and "No one is shooting anyone. Jesse, I mean it. I just cleaned."- Mae Tuck. Tell me that doesn't sound kind of like something someone's mom would say today. Also "This is my father, Angus Tuck, usually he's in clothes…" – Jesse Tuck.). Like the 2002 movie- spoiler alert! The jailbreak happens (For those of you who have seen the musical- onstage or via bootleg like I did- I personally feel that that was their biggest cop-out). In the words of Tvtropes, that was Winnie's "Crowning Moment of Awesome." Plus, Winnie will be there longer (I am of the opinion that in the movie, she was with the Tucks for longer than a couple days). I also have a few headcanons of my own about the Tucks' past that you should be aware of._

 _A few of my headcanons about the Tucks' past that you should be aware of as they are mentioned pretty early on (Natalie Babbit didn't leave many clues about their past, so it's pretty open-ended, I'd say)- Headcanon Number One: Mae wasn't Angus's first wife. Furthermore, he has eight years on her (but in the late 1700s, when they would have been married, whose husband didn't?). He was married once before, but the first Mrs. Tuck died of an illness, leaving him alone with four daughters to finish raising/get married off. Mortality was very high back in the day. However, although he loved wife number one, he would definitely choose Mae to spend eternity with (isn't it great when life works out that way?). The reason he never mentions them is because over the many many extra years, he has worked through their losses and sees them as the lucky ones- they got to ride the wheel to its fullest, and now they are in Heaven. He is happy for them in that respect, and bit envious. I feel that, unlike Miles, Tuck doesn't focus as much on the dead. He does, after all, not see death as so awful as an unlived life._

 _Headcanon Number Two: Mae got married late in life for her time period (haven't decided exact age yet, but sometime in her mid-late twenties), and for a while, believed she'd never get married. A shy, quiet type in her youth, she preferred to leave the flirting to her beautiful, more vivacious sister and instead spent most of her time at home, looking after her aging widowed mother and helping her aunt in her weaver's shop (her experience from there at least partly explains why so many of the things she makes to sell in the book are textile based, such as rag rugs). She had few suitors, but Angus Tuck noticed something special in her and fell hard for her. At first everyone, including Mae herself, thought the widower Tuck was just courting her as new mother for his girls (she was rather a known "good caregiver" type), but events soon convinced her otherwise. After Mae's "most beautiful day," when she was proposed to at a village dance, there was no question in anyone's mind that it was the real thing. (Note- both the previous headcanons are based on a dream I had that I was reading a prequel in which all this happened. I woke up deciding I liked the idea, decided after a bit of thought that it could, given the time period/Tuck and Mae's ages, potentially be plausible, and the rest is history.)_

 _Headcanon Number Three: This one explains the age differences between Miles, Jesse, and my OC that plays a part in this fic. For a while, it seemed that Mae was barren- it seems to me that many people back in the day had their first kid within a year of marriage and I personally think if Miles is indeed the oldest child of the couple (as opposed to the "oldest surviving" of their children, which is also a possibility given mortality rates back then) it took him a while to show up. Miles was nothing short of an unexpected miracle, and it seemed he'd be the only Tuck boy, as well as the only Tuck child who belonged to both Mae and Angus. Then, a couple miscarriages and/or stillbirths later, along came Jesse. This is my theory why in most depictions, Mae appears to be in her early-mid fifties. In this story, my Tuck Girl was born when Mae was in her mid-late forties, so a few more pregnancies that didn't go right happened between Jesse and Una. Una herself, as you will see, is kind of lucky she's alive- people didn't often survive getting born the way she was way back when._

 _Headcanon Number Four: Angus Tuck fought in the Revolutionary War. No one will ever convince me otherwise._

 _Headcanon Number Five: Like in the movie, Angus Tuck is Scottish. In the musicalverse, my headcanon is he came over as a child and lost his accent over time, which is why he doesn't have one in the play. Or, perhaps, he was a baby when his family came over and never had an accent to begin with. His mother was Una Tuck, so Belle is a dead guy junior in the words of TvTropes._

 _More headcanons to be announced as they become relevant (I actually have amassed quite a lot of them over the years- this was my original "out of control headcanon" before Into the Woods and my headcanon thereof finally swiped the title around the beginning of this decade.)_

 _Tuck Family Tree_

 _Gregor Tuck: d. 1760_

 _M. Una Tuck: 1720-1762_

 _Four other sons, one daughter_

 _Angus Tuck: 1748-_

 _M. Annabel MacLaren Tuck: 1749-1779_

 _Annabel Elizabeth "Nan" Tuck Standish: 1766-1792_

 _M. Phillip Standish_

 _Unnamed stillborn daughter_

 _Phoebe Aphra Tuck Bennett: 1768-1847_

 _M. Joss Bennett_

 _Five sons, three daughters_

 _Lydia Jane Tuck Halsey: 1771- 1845_

 _M. John Halsey_

 _Four sons, two daughters_

 _Patience Mary Tuck: 1774-1783_

 _Angus M. Mae Fidelity Babbitt Tuck: 1756-_

 _Miles David Tuck: 1786-_

 _M. Rose Elizabeth Everston Tuck: 1789-1870_

 _Annabel Rose "Anna" Tuck_

 _Thomas James Tuck_

 _Unnamed, unborn child_

 _Jesse William Tuck: 1791-_

 _Una Annabel "Belle" Tuck Jeffers: 1801- 1875_

 _M. Isaiah Jeffers: 1790- 1859_

 _Travis Isaiah Jeffers_

 _Rose Elizabeth Jeffers_

 _Nora Caroline "Caroline" Jeffers_

 _Ephraim Isaiah Jeffers (died in infancy)_

 _Annabel Dorcas Jeffers (stillborn)_

1875, the Woods on the Outskirts of Treegap, New Hampshire

The first thing Angus Tuck heard when he woke up alone in bed was the familiar tinkling melody of his wife's music box. The sound glided from somewhere above him, down into his ears; she was up already and in the attic. That was how she started every day lately, ever since they had received that horrible letter from Miles earlier that week. The letter that had told them that the day they dreaded, but at the same time always knew would arrive, had finally come.

Yawning and rubbing his eyes, he rolled out of bed and began to search the bedroom for his boots and his pants. Although normally, he would be fast asleep, now it was time to get dressed. He would need to go up to the attic. No doubt Mae would be rummaging through the trunks, looking at a variety of old possessions they still hung onto despite all logic, and no doubt she would be crying. She had come down from the attic wiping the last tears from her eyes every morning for the past few days, after the sound of trunks being moved about rumbled from the ceiling. His wife would need him to comfort her now, and since the letter arrived, he'd felt a pressing need to be close to her himself, just so he could have something to remind him that things would be all right eventually. Finally, he found his pants slung over the dresser; his boots under the bed. Pulling them on, he climbed the steps to the attic, following the metallic sound of the music box.

As Angus had predicted, no sooner had he opened the hatch to the attic than he saw his wife, already dressed and kneeling in a circle of trunks and boxes, the attic in its usual messy state. Their cat, Storm Cloud, home from his straying for the time being, curled up on her skirts, his dark grey, bushy fur blending into the fabric, his tiny white paws kneading the folds. Mae absentmindedly scratched his ears as she rummaged through a trunk, tears trickling from her eyes. Scattered around her were a series of relics from happier times in their lives, all of them belonging at one point or another to one special, dearly-missed person. An old, badly-battered rag doll slumped next to her foot. A handful of books lay scattered around her on the floor. Tiny gowns and caps, such as a baby might wear, embroidered with flowers and birds and one special little girl's name were tossed in a pile next to the trunk, barely covering a pair of tiny shoes, a handful of cloth diapers, and a knitted red blanket. A child-sized, everyday dress of a soft periwinkle blue fell gracefully from her hands on top of the pile of baby clothes, partly concealing it. A beautifully-stitched sampler hung over the side of the trunk and a pointer such as a teacher might use lay directly in front of it. On her lap, Mae held a large patchwork quilt which had come all the way from Pennsylvania and which had been spread across one of the beds in their old farmhouse every night until the morning they woke up to find everything had changed.

Right next to Storm Cloud, its horrible message facing the rafters, lay the Note. The note that had told them just how much their changelessness had affected everyone in their lives. The note that had been left when the one person they thought would never leave them despite their strange situation gave in to the fear of the unknown and abandoned them by night. The last note from the person they'd always hoped would recant and come back to them, but never did. Now, she never would.

"Are you all right?"

Mae gasped, startled, and hastily wiped her tears with the back of her hand. "Fine- just fine."

Angus shook his head. "No you aren't." His face fell as he watched more tears bud in the corners of his wife's warm, hazel eyes. "Would you like me to set up here with you for a while?"

She nodded. Angus wracked his brain, unsure exactly what he should say to her. What did one tell a person who has lost someone irreplaceable to her, someone whom she knows for certain she has no hope of ever seeing again no matter how much time passes due to the simple fact that because of one little drink of water, she will never die? How did one comfort someone dealing with such a loss when they were in the same situation themselves? _What can I tell her that won't hurt her all the more?_

Finally, he thought of something. It wasn't much, and he doubted it would comfort his wife at all, but it was the best he could think of.

"You know I'll always be there for you. Nothing will ever change that. Nothing _can_ change that." He laughed in spite of himself, then immediately regretted it when he saw the annoyed purse of his wife's lips. He cleared his throat. "And, we'll always have our ten-year reunions with Jesse and Miles. You'll never lose us."

"Can't we write the boys, tell them to come home now? I need my sons, I need us to be a family again, especially after what's happened."

Tuck sat down on the floor beside her, moving aside a couple of books, and wrapped his arm around her shoulders, rubbing her back. "You know we can't. Things the way they are; we have to be careful. Someone might catch on." He gave her a quick squeeze. "There, now. It'll only be five more years. Won't seem like more than a blink. Then, we'll have the two of them back."

Mae turned away from him, looking down at the blanket in her arms. "There should be three of them. There should always have been three of them. Now there never will be." Her finger gently drifted over a soft pink patchwork square. "I can't believe she's gone."

He couldn't believe it either, if the truth were known. Ever since she first left, he had tried to convince himself she'd be back, but he knew, deep down, that would turn out to be a fool's game. Now, it had. The inevitable had finally happened. Their little girl was dead at the age of seventy-four, without a reconciliation.

His wife blinked away fresh tears. "You were right, when she was first born. When you suggested we name her 'Una,' after your mother, because your mother was a fighter? You told me she must be like her, the way I had to struggle to bring her into the world." Lips quivering, she tried to smile, but winced instead. "It seems she fought to stay away, anyhow."

"I know it hurts, but we will be all right. We've got no choice. She's not the first loss we've lived through, and she won't be the last. It's just the curse of the spring." He smiled a halfhearted smile, hoping to cheer his wife a bit. "At least she got to stay on the wheel. She's very lucky that way."

"None of the others we've lost had the chance to drink from the spring, though. Belle did. If she'd been with us that day at the spring, she'd still be here." Her hand drifted gently across the quilt on her lap. "I'll never forget how happy I was the day she was born, once she was finally here- I couldn't believe I really had a baby girl, like I'd always wanted; I couldn't believe that that beautiful baby the midwife was holding up was really mine." She blinked as her tears began to bud in her eyes once more. "It used to terrify me, how small she was, after her brothers. I was afraid I'd break her. All the same, I never wanted to put her down. All those nights I used to sit up with her, rocking her to sleep with my music box… oh, she was such a little love." Sniffling, she wiped her eye with the corner of the quilt. "Oh, Angus, where did we go wrong?"

Tuck sighed. "I've asked myself that same question so many times. Sometimes, I don't think that there's anything we could have done. Everyone shied away when they realized we weren't aging- even if she'd stayed with us then, she'd probably have left at some point anyway."

"You told me you passed the spring all those years ago, when you brought her up from Pennsylvania to join the rest of us. You pointed out the "T" you carved. Why didn't you stop and make her take a drink, too?"

"Remember, I had no idea about the spring back then. None of us did." He sighed. "Really, if I had known, I don't know if I would have _let_ her drink from the spring, let alone told her to. Like I said, she was the lucky one." At this, Mae cocked her head, disbelieving. "Think about it," Angus went on, "if she drank that water, she never would have gotten to grow up. She'd still be just a child. With a little girl in the house, it would have been even harder for us to keep a low profile. We'd probably have to move every year just to avoid suspicion. Can you imagine how hard that would have been on her? A child needs a stable home, she needs to feel that she has somewhere she really belongs. Besides, would it have been fair to her, denying her the chance to have a life of her own? Keeping her trapped forever at seven years?"

"At least she'd be here," Mae snapped, by now sobbing. "At least I'd still have my little girl with me! Now she's gone, and I'm never gonna see her again! We never even got to make up… and those sweet-looking little children we used to see her walking down the street with sometimes back in Georgia… those two little girls looked just like her at that age… and the boy, I know it's hard to tell from how far away we were standing, but I'm sure he had her eyes. Angus, our grandchildren are grown by now and probably either hate us or don't know we exist!"

Angus sighed. "Perhaps it's better that they don't know." His wife gaped at him. "What we have, Mae, you can't really call it living. We just are, we just be. There's no before and there's no beyond. Every day I wish I could grow and change again, and I wouldn't wish what we have on anyone. If they knew, they might try to find the spring and go after immortality for themselves, and in the end, their lives would be ruined. Really, I'd say it's for the best that Una and her children stayed on the wheel."

"I know. I know you're right. But right now I can't- "Frantic, she put down the quilt and rummaged in her pocket for her handkerchief, blowing her nose like a trumpet as soon as she pulled it out. "What I wouldn't give to have a daughter."

"You'll always have a daughter. No matter what she did, she can't change that. She'll always be ours, same way I'll always have my first four, same way we'll always have our parents and siblings and your aunt… Belle's just far away now. We can't reach her, but she'll always be our girl… my Sunshine…"

Quickly, Angus screwed his eyes shut, willing his tears to stop. Now wasn't the time. Mae needed him right now. He had to be strong for her. Later on, once her tears had stopped for a while, he would go fishing. Once he was out on the water in his boat, with no one else in sight, then he would allow himself to cry. Once he was alone, he would pour out his grief in floods of tears and rage and hopefully be freed from it all the sooner.

One thought entered his mind, the same he had so many years ago when he'd run into their kitchen from the bedroom to answer his wife's hysterical wail and read the note she'd held, practically crumpled in her hand. _How could she do this to us?_

 _Thus ends the prologue! Reviews are always welcome- flames will be put out with the Spring Water._


	2. A Mother's Secret

1875, North Carolina

Miles away from the Tucks, in an inn somewhere in the state of North Carolina, a middle-aged man donned his yellow jacket and prepared for another day of searching. It was early summer and the fair for which he served as a barker was on the move again, touring the country from town to town, covering as many as they could manage in the three months they had before the season ended. Another day, another town, and another opportunity to find the answer he was searching for. The answer that would make him rich. The answer that would keep him alive forever. The answer that would put to rest any number of questions he'd carried throughout his life.

The answer to the mysterious immortality of the family in the story his grandmother had told him.

 _The mysterious immortality that's already coming too late_ , he thought, not for the first time that day. He had just gotten the letter from his sister a couple of days ago. His mother was dead. The consumption she'd been fighting for weeks had finally got the better of her, it seemed. The man sighed, tightening his black cravat. He was too far away. Even if he left this moment, he'd never make it back home in time for the funeral. Besides, he had schedules to keep and contracts to abide by. It was simply impossible.

Still, though, impossible though it was, he'd wished he could be there. Alone in his caravan the night he got the letter, he'd drowned himself in rye and cried like a young schoolboy. The man could count the amount of people he could honestly say he loved on one hand, and the first person he would count would always be his mother. She would be missed like no mother had ever been before. Hers had been the first face he could recall in his earliest memory, bending over his cradle; hers had been the last face he'd seen when he left Atlanta after the war to seek out a new life with a traveling fair, standing behind the fence with its peeling paint in her brown, ruined, weed-filled yard, waving goodbye as tears streamed down her cheeks and calling out to him not to forget to write. Although she didn't approve of his career, she had still supported him and encouraged him, and throughout his life had been his most constant source of love. He couldn't believe she was gone.

He'd have saved her. After he'd discovered the secret, before moving any further with the process of selling eternal life to the public, he'd have come back to Georgia himself to personally give her the Antidote to Death and watch as her body became immune to all harm.

He'd have had a job convincing her to take it. For some reason, the concept of immortality had always had an odd effect on his mother. As long as the man lived, he'd never forget how Mama had always hated it when Granny told stories about the family who never grew old. Oh, she'd never said anything to her, at least not as far as he knew. She'd just left the room every time the story started and let Granny rattle on and on and on about immortality; if she hadn't approved when her friend and her children came to stay with them and taught him the melody to a music box that would probably play forever, at least she hadn't stopped them; although she did forbid him from singing the song after they left. Yet the look that had appeared on her face every time the topic arose had given away all her true feelings. Her eyebrows narrowed, her lips pursed, her very eyes seemed to grow darker with fear, with confusion, with utter and complete hatred… and somehow, something else, something completely different. Sadness, possibly, or regret? He wasn't sure.

All he knew was that as much as he'd loved the stories, as fully as he had come to build his life around them, the memory of his mother's face when they were told would always haunt him, would always provoke shudders down his spine. It had always horrified him, somehow, knowing that there was something in his mother's life that couldn't be fixed, something that the stories reminded her of. Whatever the stories had to do with her life before the Jeffers family, before their farm, before Georgia, those stories related to the girl she used to be, and they reminded her that now she was incomplete.

He'd followed her out onto the front porch of their farmhouse, once, as a little boy of perhaps four or five, just when Granny was about to begin the story. He could see her now as if he were still there. She stood near the stairs, leaning against the railing, hugging her arms against her chest and staring into the distance at the tobacco fields, her face the same knot of fear, anger and regret.

"Mama," he'd asked as she jumped in startled surprise. "Mama, why'd you go outside? You're gonna miss all the fun!"

She'd gasped, her hand over her heart. "Travis! You startled me."

He'd looked down at his shoes then, blushing. "Sorry. But Granny's about to tell us a story!"

She had shaken her head. "I think I've heard enough stories for one day, Love. You go back inside, now. I'll be in in a few minutes."

"But it's a really good one," he'd whined, rocking back and forth on his heels in childish excitement. "She's going to tell us the story about the family who could live forever! Isn't that exciting?" He'd beamed at the mere thought of nothing being able to hurt him, of being able to do whatever he wanted, of never having to worry about dying or growing old. "Wouldn't that be wonderful, Mama? Being able to live forever, and never having to die? Wouldn't that be the greatest thing? I sure would like to be able to do that. Wouldn't you? I think I'd do just about anything-"

"Travis," she'd cried, wheeling around to face him. "Now you stop that! You stop that right this minute! You don't know what you're saying!" He'd gasped, startled and shocked, all the words scared out of his mouth. This had been the first time his mother had ever raised her voice to him, and it sent tremors of fear down his spine.

Looking back, he supposed his fear had shown on his face, for his mother had turned away from him, taken a few deep breaths, then turned back, looking him square in the face and breathing heavily. "I want you to listen to me, Travis, and I want you to listen well, you hear? Take your Granny's stories with a grain of salt. Don't go chasing after ridiculous things like unending life. It isn't an honor; it isn't a blessing; it's a curse. It will ruin your own life and those of everyone around you."

She'd knelt in front of him, her eyes boring into his as she gently clasped his hands between her own. "I know what I'm saying. Once, a long time ago, I knew someone who went looking for eternal life, who wanted to live forever just like the family in the story. A boy who always wanted to go on adventures, a reckless boy with his head stuck in the trees who never wanted to grow old. He went after eternal life, might have even found it for all I could tell- he never seemed to grow any older. The entire town pulled away from him, Travis. They were scared of him. They hated him. For all I know, he was seriously hurt because of it; it certainly seemed likely to come to that, before we fell out of each other's lives. Searching for a life longer than is natural is dangerous, my boy, and very sinful. The only eternal life anyone is ever supposed to have is with our Father in Heaven. Do not forget that."

Their Father in Heaven. Jesus, the Son of God. The Angels. The Man in the Yellow Suit had had many other conversations with his mother about the Stories over the course of his life, and it had always ended that way, with his mother talking of religion and Heaven, and how no one should seek a life longer than what God had offered them.

Her Christian faith had been his mother's greatest source of solace, and she had always sought to share it with her children. Oftentimes as she went about her work, she sang hymns; you might walk onto the porch at noontime and hear her humming "All Things Bright and Beautiful" while watering her geraniums and picking flowers from the magnolia tree to spread on the dining table, in the afternoon she'd be sitting in the parlor and stitching at her latest piece of embroidery with "Rock of Ages" on her lips, at night, after the sun went down she'd hush her youngest to sleep with "Nearer, my God, to Thee." Sometimes, she sang ballads from her grandmother's native Scotland- whoever Travis's mother's family had been, at least one of her parents had been a Scot; her very name, Una, was Scottish- sometimes, she hummed snippets of popular songs and war melodies from the Revolution, but usually, if Mrs. Jeffers was singing, it was a song of praise to her Lord.

Her dedication went further. After Granny's stories of immortal families, Mama would sometimes take out her Bible and try to counter her by reading the story of Adam and Eve. She taught her children to read as soon as they expressed interest and encouraged them more when they read the Bible than any other book. Once they had mastered it, she challenged them to memorize verses from various psalms and Bible stories; she would reward them with pennies or ginger knots when they could finally repeat a verse back to her with no mistakes. Of course, every Sunday, if you were one of Una Jeffers's children, unless you were so sick you couldn't leave your bed, church was mandatory. It didn't matter if your father never went to church- if you were Mrs. Jeffers's child, you attended and you paid attention to the pastor. It was the most important thing Mama asked of you, and it was vital you obeyed.

That had been the one point of friction between the Man in the Yellow Suit and his mother. No matter what Mama did when he was a boy, he would always find ways to play hooky from Sunday school, to get out of doing his catechism, to pay attention to everything but the pastor in church. Once he'd reached manhood, he never set foot in a church again. He just couldn't bring himself to do so.

Although he'd never told his mother this, knowing full well how it would upset her, the Man in the Yellow Suit was an atheist. As far as he was concerned, you were born by chance, you lived a while, and then you died. That was that. There was nothing before life and nothing beyond, and no use pretending otherwise. However much his mother may have talked of Heaven and angels, no matter how many hymns she sang or catechisms she cajoled her children into memorizing, the Man in the Yellow Suit was as sure as he was standing there that the only place she was was in her grave, a headstone above her, grass soon to cover the mound.

If there had been a God, he was sure, He would not have allowed what had happened to his family. He would have kept his father away from gin and whiskey, and would never have allowed him to lose his way. A true God would have spared the man's granny all the heartache she went through, losing her husband and every child she ever had except that one bad-apple of a son. His youngest sister would not have been stillborn if God was there, nor would his brother have died just a few weeks shy of his second birthday. Most importantly of all, He would never have allowed what became of his mother.

His mother. His beautiful mother with her gently waving, light ruddy-brown hair, hair that was still soft even after it went grey; her eyes as blue as ice, her sugar-drop smile. His sweet mother who petted and cooed to her cat like another, eternal baby; who made a genuine effort to have a polite word for everyone she met, however rudely they may have treated her; who would rather have doted on and spent time with her beloved children than do anything else in the world. His brave mother who raised three children- would have raised five, if his younger brother and youngest sister had survived- mostly by herself; who did whatever it took to make sure their father never laid a hand on them when he was angry or in his cups; who tried her best to hide all her pain from her children and, up to a point, succeeded. His long-suffering mother with her blackened eyes and bruised arms, with her colds and her fevers that lasted for days; his mother who sometimes excused herself from company when the group discussed the past or odd happenings under the guise of seeing about something in the kitchen, only to collapse in a chair and cry when she thought no one could see her, holding her skirts in a white-knuckled grip and singing the tune to the music box from Granny's stories- the same tune she'd forbidden her children to sing- under her breath.

His mother had been his first love, his guiding light, his favorite person in the world and, to this day, one of a great few women ever to be really worth his time. She'd deserved much better than what she'd gotten. She didn't deserve a family that essentially frightened her away from home. She didn't deserve to lose everything, little though it was, to the Yankees during the War. Least of all did she deserve a constantly-drunken lecher of a husband, no matter how carelessly she'd thrown herself into the marriage, nor the disgusting way his father had treated her. She didn't deserve to be insulted, belittled, bullied, taken advantage of, and eventually, beaten black and blue.

Many times as a boy, he'd asked her why on Earth she had married him. On this front she hadn't offered much information. "I was frightened and alone, and he was the only suitor I had left. I couldn't stay with my family anymore, it was too dangerous, no relatives could help me, and I was too scared to go it alone- the world is a horrible, mean place to young ladies, Travis. He was always a bit rough but I thought surely, he couldn't be _so_ bad."

She'd smiled then, a smile too wide, too forced to be real. "And I was right, wasn't I? He wasn't _so_ bad, was he?"

He still hated himself for how long it took him to figure out that when his mother said "he wasn't _so_ bad, was he," what she really thought was "at least I'm breathing," "I suppose it could be worse," or "at least I'm not back there." When she gave her forced smile, what she was really trying to do was to hide a wince as best she could. Mama might have tripped and fell as much as any other woman, but she wasn't particularly clumsy, and she never had nearly enough accidents to cause all the bruises he'd eventually seen her constantly arranging her sleeves and necklines to hide.

Ever since he'd found out about the full extent of his father's actions, the Man in the Yellow Suit had wanted to kill him. His father had deserved to be removed from existence, and it was just as well that he finally was without his son's help. His mother hadn't, though. She didn't deserve to be packed away under the ground like a bone some dog didn't want to chew on anymore, erased from the world, her life snuffed out like a candle.

Someone as precious, as beloved as in his eyes, his mother had been, deserved nothing less than a beautiful life that never had to end. He'd have given that to her. He'd have proven to her that immortality wasn't frightening, that it wasn't bad, but glorious… no, more than glorious. It would be golden. Golden like the sun, like a brand-new day shining through the sky. Golden like opportunity, the ultimate opportunity.

It was opportunity that she would have had if he had only stumbled on the secret to eternal life by now.

Somehow, he swore, he would have convinced her of that. He had brought some of the stingiest customers he could have imagined into freak show tents, onto rides, and towards the money box to buy all sorts of carnival food, souvenirs they would never need or even use, and quack medicines that would only be good for getting them drunk in the end. After his success as a barker, his mother might have been his biggest challenge yet, but he'd have swayed her eventually. If not, he would have found some way to use the cure to make her immortal on the sly. She would have forgiven him soon enough; the dear lady had never been able to stay mad at her firstborn for long, and soon, she would have seen it for the wonderful present it was.

She would have been so happy; he would have seen to that. They would have been a Sultan and Sultana; they would have had kingdoms of their very own. If you could put a price on eternal life, he knew, anyone with sense would pay anything he asked them to. He would never have wanted for anything ever again, and he would have given his family the world, especially his beloved mother. Instead of her run-down farmstead, she would have had a plantation bigger and better than any she had ever heard of before the war. Instead of an abusive drunkard, she could've married a king- or no one at all, she'd have had enough money that she'd never have had to worry about a husband's support again if she hadn't wanted to. She would have had beautiful dresses and jewelry, and every precious thing she could ever want. He'd have given her anything on Earth that she wanted, he'd have dedicated forever to making her happy, because it was she that he loved most in all the world. And now she was gone.

Now that she was gone, there was no one but himself to find the secret for. Now that she was gone for good, with no way that he would ever see her again, he would find the secret and make money by any means necessary. It was too late for her, but it wasn't for him. Now, he would find out what it was she was so desperate to hide. Perhaps he would even stumble upon the trail today, he mused, as he looked at the clock on the wall of his room. Time to go out on the town to drum up business for tonight's fair. Grabbing his walking stick and hat from beside his bed, he sauntered to the door, ready for business.

 _I'll find that secret, Mama_ , he thought, closing the door behind him. _And when I do, I'll prove it's nothing to be afraid of. I only wish that you could have been able to see it. You never would have been afraid again. Now, you'll never even know._

 _Ah, well. I'll just live my life enough for the both of us. After all, I'll have forever!_


End file.
